Part 18

But Bertha escaped from the asylum, which has for its safeguards the lock and the steel bar. Locks and bars are nothing to "Fainting Bertha"! She was recaptured and returned, only that she might escape again on Christmas night, finding her way to Peoria, where her escapades in going through the town were marvels to the Peoria police. The conductor on the Peoria train from whom she took $30 has not claimed his money. But half a dozen stores in which she operated and the salesman from whose samples in the Fey Hotel she took hundreds of dollars worth of silks, jewelry, clothing and perfumes got back some of the plunder, which detectives found piled around her in a chair car in an Omaha train.

The Peoria police locked her up, and while the charges rested Dr. Zeller, of the asylum for the incurable insane at South Bartonville, asked of Dr. Podstata and the penitentiary authorities the custody of "Fainting Bertha." Warden Murphy at Joliet was delighted at the idea. Supt. Podstata at Elgin was as greatly pleased. Dr. Zeller at South Bartonville Asylum for the Incurable Insane, receiving the young woman, was conscious of having a unique addition to the 1,929 other inmates of his barless cottages of detention. In the history of the South Bartonville asylum only one female inmate has escaped, and she was found dead soon afterwards in a ravine into which she had fallen.

PALE BLUE COLOR SCHEME OF BERTHA'S WARD.

"If Bertha escapes here it will be the test of vigilance as opposed to locks and steel bars," is the summing up of the situation by Dr. Zeller. Bertha is not wholly satisfied where she is. The food is not all she desires. She refers to her ward and its environment as "the dump." Yet her particular "dump" is decorated in pale blue--part of the color scheme of the asylum management,--the color scheme of her ward being adapted to her particular temperamental degree of insanity. But while Bertha has been gnawing diamonds from tie pins, one of her fraternity in ward classification has a record of gnawing the woodwork from at least a dozen other insane wards in as many institutions for the insane.

How subtly conscious of her position "Fainting Bertha" may be on occasion was demonstrated the other day when it was arranged with Dr. Zeller that she should go with two nurses and the staff member in Peoria in order that her picture might be taken in a local gallery.

DELIGHTED AT CHANCE OF GOING TO TOWN.

With $9 to her credit in the asylum's system of personal accounts, Bertha wanted some of this sum for "shopping," but when it was refused she accepted the situation without particular protest. The idea of going uptown, five miles from South Bartonville, was delightful. Her spirits rose high at the idea, and when her nurses had brought her over to the administration building she dropped into the office chair occupied by Dr. Zeller, and in mock seriousness turned to the little group, asking what she could do for them.

On the Pekin and Peoria electric road she was banked in next the window by her escorts, and was the pink of propriety until Peoria was reached, save as occasionally she turned backward toward the conductor and smiled. And invariably the conductor smiled in return!

"Honey" was her designation of Nurse Quick. "I'm a perfect lady, ain't I, Honey?" she repeated a score of times on the trip. In the photographer's gallery the snap of the camera shutter brought a start from the object of the lens, and the first picture in six years, save as the police authority of the state had insisted that she pose for it.

But after the ordeal at the photographer's Bertha wanted most of all a "square meal." Miss Quick knew of a restaurant where quiet prevailed and where there would be little incentive to Bertha to faint, and there the little party adjourned for the "square meal." Pie--apple or mince--was the dessert.

TOOK PIE AND CANDY BACK "HOME."

"You won't mind, honey, if I take a pie home, will you?"

Miss Quick didn't mind at all. And not minding the pie, Miss Bertha promptly buttered four rolls liberally and included in the package a bunch of celery which had been left over after she had passed it around insistently, time and again. At the candy counter just outside the dining room Bertha balked amiably.

"I don't like to presume on your good nature, but I know you won't object to a small box of candy?" she purred.

The nurse didn't object to the 25-cent box; which was an inspiration to "Fainting Bertha."

"But don't you think this is ever so much nicer?"

The nurse had to admit that it was. It was a half-dollar box of mixed candies!

"But I'm afraid it looks like imposing on your good nature just a little?" she smiled, as the cashier proceeded to wrap it up. "And you don't mind, honey?" to Miss Quick, who smiled indulgently, and with the pie, rolls, and celery in one hand and the box of candy in the other, Bertha started back to the Asylum for the Incurable Insane at South Bartonville, five miles away.

DETENTION RECORD OF "FAINTING BERTHA."

Asylum for the Feeble Minded, Glenwood, Ia. Discharged.

Insane asylum, Glenwood, Ia. Discharged.

Insane asylum, Nevada, Mo. Discharged after several escapes.

St. Bernard's asylum, Council Bluffs, Ia. Discharged.

Indeterminate sentence at Joliet penitentiary.

Kankakee, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.

Kankakee, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.

Kankakee, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Returned to Joliet penitentiary.

Elgin, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.

Elgin, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.

Present address, Asylum for the Incurable Insane, South Bartonville, Ill.

But even the genial Dr. Zeller and his barless windows and lockless prison proved in time to be enervating to such a restless being as "Fainting Bertha." So, during June, 1908, she made no less than three attempts to escape. She was, however, apprehended in each case before she reached Peoria, and returned to the asylum. The authorities declare that she was really playing for theatrical effect rather than from any desire to get away from Bartonville. Be that as it may, the fact remains that if she desires to get out of Bartonville she probably will, as she is the most resourceful criminal of her sex known to the authorities.

FRONT.

A good front is a distinct asset. A good front is made up of neat, clean clothes, on a clean body, the whole housing a clean mind. A man with clean clothes on a dirty body, or dirty clothes on a clean body, is not wanted anywhere in the business world; and there is no place in the heavens above or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, that has room for the man with the dirty mind.

But with the clean mind inside the clean body, and neat, simple, clean clothes on the outside of it, the young man has all the essentials of a good front. Anything more is superfluous and tends to make him ridiculous. Simplicity is the keynote.

This moralizing on the value of front is suggested by observations and comparisons of the habits of certain Chicago millionaires, and the ways of some of their cheap clerks, the latter having exaggerated ideas of putting up a false appearance of prosperity.

These comparisons were so striking that they attracted the attention of Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, and during the course of his regular work he found time to tabulate a little, with startling results.

The detective found that there are in Chicago many young men living on very meager salaries, who have such exaggerated notions of the value of a prosperous appearance that they overshoot the mark, and frequently, as result of trying, as they think, to "look like a millionaire," they often succeed in looking very much like the famous animal with very long ears and a loud voice which one spoke to the prophet Baalam.

"It is easy to distinguish the real millionaire," said the great detective, in discussing this subject. "If he wants to get anywhere in a great city and his automobile happens to be engaged, he takes the same means of getting there as does the toiler in the mills or factory; he walks, or he rubs elbows on the street cars with the laboring men, many of whom never know that they are brushing against the owner of millions."

STANLEY FIELD'S BUGGY.

"Stanley Field runs around town in a crazy old country buggy, just like a farmer. He took this method of going about when the great teamsters' strike was on, and he was a member of the Merchants' committee.

"But I will bet you a good cigar that there are any number of little snippety ten-dollar clerks in the great establishment of which Stanley Field is the head, who would feel themselves eternally disgraced if they were seen in that buggy.

"Not for little mister-ten-dollar clerk! No, sir. He must go out and spend three dollars for a cab if he wants to get down town to a theatre. It is just this silly pride that makes forgers and embezzlers.

"My advice to young men would be, 'Keep your mind clean, your body clean and your clothes neat and clean. Never mind about fancy show. Men will respect you more if you follow this advice than they will if you squander money foolishly in the effort to put up a false front which deceives no one.'"

Out of hundreds of cases which Wooldridge has run down, where embezzlement, forgery and theft, even of the pettiest sort, was at the bottom of the crime, the great detective declares that fully half of the cases had their origin in this silly attempt to appear something more than the real thing. Silly pride is a teacher of crime, and a sure school mistress she is.

And the absurdity, the bally foolishness of it all, is that these pitiful attempts deceive no one. Every one knows solidity when they see it, just as they know sham when they see it. A self-respecting young man cannot afford to make of himself a sham, even by taking a cab when the millionaires walk or take the street car.

FAKE PRIDE LEADS TO CRIME.

On the other hand, many young men have plunged into a life of crime through over-spending their salaries, in the effort to convince every one who looked at them that they were on the directorate of the Standard Oil Company. Where the millionaire walks these silly young jackasses take a cab, and pay half a day's salary in order to ride two or three blocks.

"I have seen John J. Mitchell, the president of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, and one of our foremost financiers, walk from the Northwestern station to the bank building, while right behind him a young donkey, who was working for $25 a week in that very bank, would pay a cabby a dollar to drive him the seven short blocks from that same station to the bank.

"It is just such young pinheads as that who afterwards turn out to be our embezzlers, forgers and financial criminals."

The man who has made a name which is known in every corner of the United States as an authority on all kinds of frauds, snorted his indignation as he thought of the silly bank clerk. Then he continued:

"Does anybody ever see Arthur Meeker take a cab to ride a few blocks? Not on your life. He walks. So does Cyrus McCormick, Harold McCormick, R. Hall McCormick, Frank Lowden, and any number of the other men whose names stand at the top of Chicago finance. I see Frank Lowden on the Indiana avenue cars, the line I take myself, time after time. He is one of the most democratic of men."

LAST CHANCE GONE.

IDENTIFICATION BUREAU AIDED BY NATURE.

The Criminal and the Crooked Members of the Human Race Have a New and Dangerous Enemy in the Finger Print Method of Identification.

The last hope of the enemies of society, the habitual criminals, is gone. The Bertillon system sounded the death knell of the criminal so far as capture was concerned. The finger print system, as first set forth by Sir Francis Galton and elaborated by Sir Edward Henry, has made possible the absolute identification after capture.

One of the first men to see the tremendous possibilities of the finger print system, as applied to the identification of suspects, was Detective Clifton E. Wooldridge of Chicago. Through his efforts and that of others equally interested in the exact identification of criminals, the Chicago Police Department established the finger print method of identification in 1905, as a Supplement to the Bertillon system which was established in 1887.

The Bertillon system catches the suspect. The finger print system makes sure that he is the criminal. The Bertillon system, while a splendid thing for catching the thief, still left some loop-holes which needed strengthening. This was supplied by the finger print system. Like the man and woman referred to in Longfellow's Hiawatha it is a case of "useless each without the other." When the two systems are worked together there is absolutely no possible escape for the apprehended suspect.

The Chicago Police Bureau of Identification is the second largest in the world, and contains over 70,000 pictures.

By combining the Bertillon measurements with the finger-print system the police department has woven a network of identification around the criminal which makes it practically an impossibility for him ever to disguise himself should he at any future time fall into the hands of the officials of the law.

The finger print method was discovered about forty years ago by Sir William Herschell, then an English official in India. Sir Francis Galton, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was the first to systematize it, and the first to establish the fact that the papillary ridges of the fingers did not change through life. This was nearly twenty years ago. Sir Francis Galton made the calculation that the chance of any two sets of finger prints being the same is one in 16,400,000,000, and as an article from which the writer quotes states, "there are only 1,600,000,000 people in the world," its population would have to be increased ten times before two people were identical and means that a finger print as a mark of identification is practically infallible.

PERFECTED IN LONDON.

Sir Edward Henry, Chief Police Commissioner, London, England, is the man who perfected the system, as it is now used, classifying finger prints by signs and numerals, so that it is now considered perfect.

The finger prints of women are the same as men, except in size, while the prints of negroes are the clearest and strongest, owing to the thickness of skin and moisture from perspiration, and it has not yet been demonstrated that finger prints are any indication of character.

While quite a large number of cities and penal institutions in the United States have adopted and are now using the Bertillon system of criminal identification, it is to be regretted that it has not been more generally adopted by all cities of a population not less than 5,000, and by all penitentiaries, reformatories and county jails. Universally applied under competent instructors, nearly every professional criminal would, in a few years, be recorded, so that it would only become necessary to keep up with the new additions to the ranks of the criminal classes.

It has been thoroughly established that the papillary ridges of fingers never change during life. From infancy to senility and until long after death no change ensues in the fingers. Though partially destroyed by injury, the original lines retain their pristine characteristics when healed.

This is nature's method of identification, and no record can be found of the digits of two persons having exactly the same characteristics. Numerous instances could be cited of twins and triplets whose finger prints afforded the only means of distinguishing one from the other.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR TAKING FINGER PRINTS.

Instruments required: A piece of tin, ordinary printer's ink, and a 10-cent rubber roller are all the tools necessary for getting the impression. It requires no special training to take finger impression, and any rural constable can, with ten minutes' practice, take a set of good finger prints in five minutes. After having a week's practice he could take them in three minutes.

SCOTLAND YARD METHOD.

At Scotland Yard a metallic brace is in use for the purpose of forcing refractory prisoners to leave correct impressions upon the records. One application of this brace is persuasive enough to cause the culprit to hasten to comply with a request for his signature.

A small slab stone is covered with ink, which is distributed with a sprayer, and the prisoner is compelled to place his fingers in the ink and then firmly implant them upon paper.

On a regular prescribed form impressions are taken so that the flexure of the last joint shall be at a given point on the record.

The digits are taken singly and then an imprint is made of all of them simultaneously.

When the prisoner has finished imprinting the record he is called upon for his signature, and immediately underneath the name, as written by himself, an imprint is left of the right forefinger.

For the edification of American police, Mr. Ferrier demonstrates that upon a sheet of paper you may sprinkle some charcoal dust and press it upon the paper with your thumb and then blow the dust off and the imprint of the digit will remain.

MOST POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION.

But this thumb print possibility in commercial papers has its greatest future in the positive identification which either thumb or finger print carries with it. Criminologists all over the world have satisfied themselves of the absolute accuracy of the finger print identification. It would be hard to figure just how many Constantines were arrested or kept under surveillance following the horrible murder in Chicago, the suspicions aroused by personal resemblances to the criminal's photograph and especially by the prominent gold tooth of the man. But in a criminal's finger print the merest novice anywhere in the world may take an ink impression of the fingers of the suspected criminal, and if these prints should be in the bureau of identification at Scotland Yard, with its 100,000 records of individuals, the man would be identified positively within half an hour--identified not only by the experts of the bureau, but an ordinary citizen would be an authority in attesting the proof.

This is a suggestion of the absolute accuracy of identifications on commercial paper. At the present time traveling salesmen who spend much money and who wish to carry as little as possible of cash with them, have an organized system by which their bankable paper may be cashed at hotels and business houses over the country.

APPLIED TO IMMIGRANTS.

Major R. W. McClaughry, warden of the federal prison at Leavenworth, sees in the finger print system a possibility which might be taken cognizance of by the government at Ellis Island. With the millions of immigrants who have come and who still are to come to these shores, the finger print requirement would simplify many of the tangles of many kinds which result from this inrush of foreign population.

Aside from the fact that many of this country's criminals are foreign born, it remains that civil identifications of such people are matters of great moment. Titles and estates have hung in the balance of incomplete identifications of persons who are claimants in the United States. Fifty years after a finger print is registered that same finger, or group of fingers, will prove the personality of the one registering. In case of accidents of many kinds one hand or the other is most likely to escape mutilation, and a post-mortem imprint of the fingers still is proof of identity.

The finger print system is being taken up more rapidly than was the Bertillon, largely owing to the fact that police departments, recognizing that a scientific system gives far greater results and can in no way be compared with the old method of describing criminals, by color, age, height, weight, eyes, hair, etc., are more willing than formerly to intelligently investigate and test new methods.

Under the Bertillon system it is contended that the bones of the human anatomy stop growing after the age of twenty-one years. In consequence measurements taken of juvenile offenders under that age are practically of little use, as they show too wide a variance with measurements taken in after years, and are not a certain source of identification.

The identification from imprint taken from the finger tips of both hands can be recorded as soon as the child is born, and no matter at what time of life a record is again taken of the subject, absolute identification can be had, as the papillary ridges of the palmer surface of the finger tips present the same formation until death, and even though some of the fingers become mutilated, amputated or lost, sufficient prints would remain on the other fingers to produce identification.

While it is claimed that the finger print system is sufficient unto itself for all identification, after working each system side by side for a number of years, I believe that both systems should be installed in all cities, penitentiaries, etc., especially as they both will be given an impartial and thorough test here, with the result that it will be the survival of both, or of the fittest.

KEEP BAD MEN OUT OF SERVICE.

In these government departments it is expected that the finger print records will serve to keep undesirable people out of the service, as well as to afford a complete method of identifying every member, or past member, in years to come.

Both branches of the War Department, the army and navy, had first installed the Bertillon system, and within the last year the finger print system, thereby recognizing both, but apparently giving the finger print system the preference; owing to the many ways it can be applied in the service, and especially as to recording all enlisted men and to the identification of those who might be maimed or killed in battle, whose identity might be sought afterward, or to identify deserters; or if a soldier or sailor has lost his honorable discharge paper, he can go to any enlisting office, have his finger prints taken, his identity established, and new papers issued, thereby avoiding red tape or having about one dozen affidavits from different people to substantiate his claim.

Not only as a means of detecting and identifying criminals may the finger print be used, but its usefulness in various ways is easily demonstrated.

It is clearly within the range of possibility that the traveler a few years hence may be called upon to imprint an identifying finger mark upon his letter of credit or certified check.

As a means of preventing-fraud or securing the signatures of those who cannot write, the finger print system is invaluable, as the mark may be easily forged, but the finger's impress can be only made by the proper party and cannot be duplicated by others.

The thumb or finger tips will leave an imprint upon glass, polished metal or wood, owing to the moisture and natural oil oozing from the cuticle. It is a simple matter to procure such imprints when wanted, and they can be turned over to the authorities for identification of a suspect.

SECURE PRINTS OF ALL CRIMINALS.